Jimmy Tamborello

In 2003, the Postal Service's debut came as a pleasant surprise, the almost alchemical result of a collaboration between a delicate Pacific Northwestern indie rocker and an underground IDM producer who didn't even have to be in the same room to create some of the year's best indie pop songs. Make that pop songs, period, because Give Up was so successful that last year it reached half a million in sales to become Sub Pop's first gold record since Nirvana's Bleach. The duo even caught the eye of their namesake, who first issued a cease-and-desist before coming to an agreement that included a Postal Service performance at the USPS' National Executive Conference in 2004.

Meanwhile, Ben Gibbard has kept a high profile with Death Cab for Cutie, who have had two albums in the Billboard 200 (Plans hit #4) in the wake of Give Up. Jimmy Tamborello has been quieter, only recently releasing Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake under the name James Figurine, a reference to the band he was playing with when he first embraced techno on a tour in Germany. He is also hard at work prepping the next Dntel album for its release on Sub Pop.

Recently, Tamborello was kind enough to talk to Pitchfork about his upcoming projects, that USPS conference, and the chimpanzees working on the cover art for the new Dntel album.

Pitchfork: Why revive the Figurine moniker?

Jimmy Tamborello: It just kind of fit with this project. I really wanted it to be a techno record, and I felt kind of safer [doing that] under the Figurine name. I wanted to have more time for the songs to develop and be more structured that way. But then I started doing my usual poppy stuff, and I kind of fell in between the two things. It's kind of a weird place to be because I don't know if it can please either side now.

Pitchfork: What can you tell me about "55566688833", the song about text messaging? Where did that come from?

JT: I had a friend staying at my house. He was going through some relationship stuff, and he was texting back and forth with his girlfriend pretty much the whole time I was with him. It got really bothersome, and I was just thinking of how hard it would be to deal with relationship issues in that format-- like, how long it takes to type out.

Pitchfork: There's a line in that song-- "We fought face to face like it was the 90s again"-- that reminds me of the line from "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan", "He then played every song from 1993". Do you have a lot of nostalgia for the 1990s?

JT: I mean, the 90s were kind of my first full conscious decade. I guess I have some nostalgia for it, but it was more just a joke about times pre-internet and pre-cell phone.

Pitchfork: You collaborate with Jenny Lewis on your new album. Did you know going into it that she wasn't going to be singing any lyrics and that it would just be more of an ambient thing, or was that decided when you were recording?

JT: I didn't have her in mind from the beginning. She's my neighbor, and I like to have her involved in whatever I'm doing, so I just had her come over. I had already sung the melodies, and I wanted someone else to beef it up a little and make it not just me. And she's always kind of around.

Pitchfork: Is there anything happening with the Postal Service now?

JT: We're trying to work on some stuff. We're talking about wanting to finish an album sometime next year. We have to work with Death Cab's schedule.

I definitely want to do another one. The Postal Service is a really nice outlet. It's so fun to do. Changing it too much or even over-thinking it-- I just don't want to make it a drag to work on.

Pitchfork: So it's not going to be a techno record.

JT: No. I have to really fight to stay away from that, especially with someone like Ben singing. Even a better singer, more melodic-- those kinds of vocals over a techno beat-- it starts to veer into Eurotrash territory.

Pitchfork: Have you guys started sending tracks back and forth? Is it still the same style?

JT: Yeah. We're still doing it that way, except this time we know how to use YouSendIt.com. Doing stuff online is a lot easier now. So we probably won't be using the actual mail.

Pitchfork: Uh oh! You're going to have to change the name.

JT: [Laughs] Yeah: You Send It.

Pitchfork: Is Jenny going to be involved in the process a little more?

JT: Yeah, that's the plan. We've been talking about the new album for, like, a year now, and definitely in the beginning we were talking about that.

Pitchfork: So she might actually write songs for the record?

JT: Yeah, hopefully. But lately she's been really busy. She's got the solo thing and then the band too. It will kind of depend on everyone's schedules.

Pitchfork: Speaking of the Postal Service, I have to ask about that show that you guys had to play as part of your copyright settlement with the U.S. Postal Service, the one at the convention in 2004. What was that like? Were you the only band? Was it just in a conference room?

JT: It was really weird. When we found out we had to do it, it was really depressing, and it kind of freaked me out. I already don't like flying, and flying to play a show for people who probably aren't going to care-- we only played two songs-- it just seemed like a crazy trip. But then when we did it, and it ended up being kind of fun.

The show was in the hotel we were staying at. They were doing these full, eight-hour days of presentations for all of their people-- it was a big corporate meeting for them. And we were the very last thing one day. We just played this sort of jokey intro and came out, and I think we talked to the Postmaster General for a minute. Then we sat at a table and played two songs, and everybody else was sitting in chairs.

Pitchfork: What two songs did you play?

JT: "Such Great Heights" and "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight". There was no guitar or drumset, so it had to be the ones that would sound the best with just a laptop and Ben singing.

Pitchfork: How many people were there?

JT: Like 800.

Pitchfork: But you were sitting at a table?

JT: Yeah, even Ben was saying it felt like a press conference. Then we had to go to the after-- well, I guess you don't call it an after-party-- but the reception, and it was all very good-natured. Everyone was sort of in on the joke.

Pitchfork: I saw the Postal Service in Chicago a couple of years ago. You guys had the video screen and the lights, and you have really creative videos. Do you think there's a fear-- especially if you're playing to indie rock crowds-- that people are going to be bored watching what they see as just a guy with a computer onstage?

JT: Yeah. Ben, especially, was really nervous at the beginning of that tour about having a good time, dancing around and stuff. That was definitely part of the motivation for the visuals.

Pitchfork: Who picked the Phil Collins cover ["Against All Odds"]? Was that you or Ben?

JT: That was Ben.

Pitchfork: Did it take some convincing on his part, or were you on board the whole time?

JT: No, I liked the idea. Although at this point I really can't listen to that song anymore. It really makes me mad what I did with it.

Pitchfork: It makes you mad?

JT: It just sounds too much like a joke where it wasn't supposed to be.

Pitchfork: When you guys played it in Chicago, it was almost anthemic in a way. I remember thinking the recorded version was a little quieter. It sounded like it was coming from a radio somewhere.

JT: Yeah, I remember that. That was one bad choice. The first half of the song was kind of a weird run-by. Then it exploded, and the second part was the mainstream, hip-hop, Justin Timberlake part.

Pitchfork: At the beginning of this year, there was all that talk about how Apple's Intel commercial looked a lot like the video for "Such Great Heights". I saw a side-by-side comparison between the two on YouTube, and it was striking how similar some of the frames were. Did anything ever happen with that? Was there any legal stuff?

JT: What happened was they used the same video director. They saw our video, and they just got the same guy to make it. We never got into it with them really. I mean [we got] a little bit of compensation from them for it, but we were never going to sue them or anything.

Pitchfork: Not even for free iPods?

JT: Well, they gave us a little bit of stuff.

Pitchfork: Really? Like what?

JT: I don't know if we can talk about that. It was more like-- attention on iTunes and stuff like that.

Pitchfork: So it was mostly a matter of the director copying himself?

JT: Yeah. It was kind of weird.

Pitchfork: What can you tell me about the new Dntel album? We reported that you signed to Sub Pop and who some of the collaborators would be, but is there anything else special in store?

JT: I feel really weird about it, like it doesn't sound like an album that should have taken five years. I wish it had come out two years ago. When someone takes a long time on a record, I expect more from it.

Pitchfork: How did the signing with Sub Pop come about?

JT: I've known Tony Kiewel-- our A&R guy for the Postal Service-- since college. We were roommates. The stuff with the Postal Service went so well that we are trying to do more stuff together. Originally, we were going to do the Figurine album, but I just realized that that the Dntel album was getting confusing with all of the different people involved. Contact-wise, it seemed easier to have a little more established business coordinating it through him. It just made more sense to do it this way.

Pitchfork: So there's no long-term contract for Dntel and Sub Pop?

JT: I think we're just doing a one-album thing. At this point, I want to do everything with Sub Pop. I just like working with them. It's a good-sized label. I'll still be doing stuff with Plug Research, too. I guess it will just depend on the project.

Pitchfork: We reported it as tentative, but is the Dntel album going to be called Dumbluck?

JT: Yeah, and I have these chimps to do the painting that I'm hoping will be the artwork.

Pitchfork: Actual chimpanzees? What do they do?

JT: Kind of weird finger painting, different color combinations.

Pitchfork: Where do you have access to chimpanzees?

JT: I can't-- I don't want to out anybody. The only thing is, the paintings didn't come out [that well]. I was hoping one of them would be the album cover, but I don't think any of them strike me as one.

Pitchfork: [Laughs] Oh man. So when you write a song, do you know, "This is going to be a Dntel song," or, "This is going to be a Postal Service song?"

JT: I do. I usually start the day knowing what I'm working on, but a lot of it is interchangeable. There are certain Figurine songs that fit on the Dntel album, and some of the ideas from that will be used on other records. Mostly, I don't feel comfortable putting out records under my own name.

Pitchfork: Why is that? Is that why collaboration is so appealing to you?

JT: A lot of it comes from not being happy with my own skills, vocally and lyrically. My main problem with lyrics is that I can't think of anything to sing about, most of the time. I'm not really good at talking in general, and I usually just treat vocals as another instrument. I've never been comfortable with that part of it. I feel better with other people taking care of that.

With Dntel, I never meant it to end up as a concept-driven collaboration for indie rock people. I just need that variety. Even the Figurine album was supposed to be just me, and I ended up getting a lot of people involved.

Pitchfork: How do you see yourself fitting into the context of electronic music? Do you see yourself as being more in the electronic realm or the pop and indie rock realm?

JT: I mean, I do everything on the computer, so I guess that makes it electronic. But this new Figurine album is probably the most purely electronic thing I've done in a long time. It's almost like I'm rediscovering the more electronic stuff. With the Figurine album, it was kind of exciting to do something that was more in this electronic world instead of trying to fuse the two worlds together.

But in general, I feel more like an indie rock person than an electronic person. Just the way I approach songs, and the songs I come up with. I think it has more to do with [stuff like] Pavement. A lot of the electronic stuff that I liked early on was intimidating. It just sounded like something I could never do. Then hearing Pavement, and even, like, the Magnetic Fields, it just seemed more attainable. I've always felt more comfortable in that world.